Mockery of the Mirror
by Angel Leviathan
Summary: House/Atlantis crossover. "You're interested because she's you. She has the potential to be you. Except she has a soul."
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Mockery of the Mirror  
**Author:** Angel Leviathan  
**Disclaimer:** The characters of House and Atlantis aren't mine.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Notes:** Set three years before the first season of House M.D. Spawned partly in reference to the throwaway comment in 'The Storm' in Season 1 about Elizabeth's knee. Prequel to another fic, entitled, 'Better Than Vicodin'.

**Prologue**

_"You're interested because she's you. She has the potential to be you. Except_ she _has a soul."_

The pale brunette in the bed was entirely still and silent. It made a change from the past few days, during which her behaviour had ranged from hours of incoherent rambling to all-out screaming in agony. Drugged into a coma, she no longer fought the doctors who attempted to treat her and the nurses who attended to her.

She wasn't responding to treatment. Not in the correct, expected, ways in any case.

"You stole her file."

Leaning against the back wall of the room, House refused to react when said file was waved in his face by one of his colleagues. Mock-anger wasn't the newcomer's strong point and besides, House knew he had been sent by higher powers. He snatched the file away and opened it, dropping his eyes to the documentation within.

"She's not your patient. Cuddy's furious," Wilson stated.

"If Cuddy was furious, she would be here right now in all her raving glory and instead she's sent her lapdog," House shot back. "Why's this one so important anyway?"

Wilson twitched his shoulders. "She was on duty in Asia. Diplomat. The member of her team who brought her here headed back three days ago. She's meant to be one of the best, apparently."

"One of the best who failed to remember to get inoculated against Japanese Encephalitis."

"She did get inoculated. And she still has a central nervous system infection. When she was admitted, she thought she was speaking English when she was speaking fluent Mandarin."

His eyebrows rose briefly at the information, but House continued to skim the file. "Says it started with headaches. By the time she admitted them, her left arm was dead and by the time they got her here she was paralysed from the waist down."

"Hardly anybody's got a coherent sentence from her since she's been here, even before the fever hit. Then she started seizing." Wilson approached the bed, staying a few paces back as if he were afraid the patient might wake. "Encephalitis meds are working on some levels, but Cuddy had her put out when she started screaming."

"'Permanent damage'..." House read aloud.

"It's a possibility. If she doesn't start responding soon, there'll be more damage than we're already expecting."

"And when she does start responding, her immune system's going cripple her again." He snapped the file shut. "Secondary damage."

Wilson sighed. "Nothing we can do. At least she's sleeping through the worst of it."

House grunted a non-committal response. "How come you're so up to date on her case anyway?"

"Like I said, she's one of the best. Her file's been passed round every department in-case someone's missed something. Which you'd know if you'd bothered to-"

"She's an idiot. Who ignores their arm going numb?"

"Who drives away the woman who saved his life?" Wilson shot back.

Stacy. Two years and it still stung. As if he wasn't left with a permanent, agonising, back-throwing reminder with every waking moment. "You get to play that card once a year," the diagnostician muttered.

"Gladly."

"It doesn't add up. CNS infection alone wouldn't do this much this quickly..." he mused aloud. He dismissed the idea. "Doesn't matter what we do. Immune response will finish off her chances of a full recovery before we get her out of the woods."

Flabbergasted - yet not surprised - Wilson stared, his voice rising in accusation. "You're not even going to _try?_ You bother to come and ogle the woman and you're not going to try?"

"Heard she was important. Thought her chances of being _hot_ and important weren't so great."

Spending so much time with such an unfeeling bastard was doing no favours for Wilson's blood-pressure. "And?"

House threw the file onto the bed. "Tell Elizabeth Weir that she isn't going to walk again."


	2. Chapter 2

"Good god, I didn't know this woman had the power to command everybody's attention whilst unconscious."

Cuddy bit down on the inside of her lip and made a point of continuing to write on the chart in her grip without a noticeable pause. "Funny. Then why are you here? I know you do love to mock the unconscious - your being conscious being such a big win over them - but word is you've been hanging around this room rather frequently."

House shrugged. "You tend not to stick to patient's wishes once they're unconscious. Oh, wait, that was just me. Or was it? I could be doing her a favour."

She swallowed and wouldn't look at him for a moment. She wasn't going to be goaded into the same old argument again. "She had no wishes, except wanting to keep her arms and legs actually functioning, I presume."

"And?"

"And read her chart."

"It would be impolite to snatch." He moved across the room and made a show of collapsing in the chair by the window. "Or so I've been told."

"We got her temperature down to a reasonable level last week and she seems to be fighting off the infection. The meds are working. We should be able to wake her soon, provided her pain levels aren't so high we have to put her out again. She needs to be conscious so we can assess the damage levels better – reactions we get now-"

"Won't mean a hell of a lot when she's conscious," House finished. "She could have gone into that coma thinking she was permanently paralysed. You take those meds away and Ms Weir-"

"Doctor," Cuddy corrected.

"Fine, 'Doctor' Weir might not be as willing to wake up as you think. Mind's a powerful thing."

She sighed, frustrated. "Who knows what she was thinking when we put her under. She was speaking Mandarin and she had no idea what was going on. As long as we can get her conscious and as comfortable as possible, that's enough of the battle won for now."

House hummed and leant forward in the chair, resting his head on his cane and his gaze on Elizabeth.

"You stay away from her when she's awake," Cuddy insisted, noticing something in his eyes that she wasn't sure she liked. No change there then. "Stay away."

"What more harm could I possibly do a woman who might not even be able to sit up when you wake her?" he demanded.

"I don't want her thinking she's going to be in agony forever. If there's pain, we need to deal with it, and not how you 'deal with it'. No pity parties with her, no 'my life sucks more than yours' crap. She needs to be motivated, not taught how to deal. The longer she fights, the more chance she has of getting back to normal."

House smirked. "You're gonna need me when you wake her."

"Oh really?"

He stood. "Really." The ridiculous smirk was still plastered across his face. "Really, really," he said, leaning heavily on the cane as he ambled to the door. "Gonna be fun hearing you beg. Again."

Cuddy turned - her first instinct to hurl Elizabeth's file after him - though she settled for shooting a savage look through the glass of the door her target slid rather hastily shut. For a 'cripple', House could move pretty damn quick when it suited him.

-

A nagging that she thought perhaps could be a voice lingered on the edge of the darkness that enveloped her. For a moment, she wondered what had happened and where she was, before such concerns were knocked to the back of her muddled mind by what started as a pin-prick at the base of her spine. A twinge and something seemed to shift, spasm; pain flared and sent a wave of agony rushing down her legs. Ignoring the voice, she obeyed the first command her body gave her – to curl up and protect herself from whatever was causing the damage the pain tried to warn her of. Finding her left arm sluggish – but responding none the less – she rolled over and tried to draw her knees to her chest. Fresh agony blazed above and below her left knee, circling inward and clamping down on her kneecap.

A shriek she tried to muffle tore itself from her throat as she opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by several people she didn't recognize, clad in white coats. Doctors, her mind tried to reason, but she still searched for a familiar figure and came back with none. Panic surged and urged her to move, her body screaming in protest and not doing as she bid it.

"Elizabeth?"

Her name. Someone knew her name.

A few moments later, the pain eased to a level that allowed her senses to take more in and her mind to process the information. Taking several deep breaths, she tried to compose herself and work out which of the people around her had called her name.

Where was she? What had happened?

Hospital. Doctors. White coats. Pain. Something bad. Needles. Monitor bleeping.

"Elizabeth?"

A dark-haired woman was peering down at her, unable to hide her concern.

"Where am I?" Elizabeth asked, throat raw and voice rough.

"Princeton Plainsborough Teaching Hospital," the woman replied. "You were in Asia," she moved to explain. "You fell ill and deteriorated rapidly. Your symptoms didn't fit any one profile. One of your colleagues had heard of one of our doctors and accompanied you here."

'What do I have?' presented itself as the next question, but she wasn't quite sure she could face it. The pain was still there, though it had dulled significantly. She felt heavy, slow, and wondered what level of whatever drugs were in her drip she was on. "...Who are you?" Elizabeth questioned, forcing herself to lie still and trying desperately not to move or jar her left knee at all.

"Doctor Cuddy, the Dean of Medicine. I've been overseeing your case."

The answer made Elizabeth feel no better than before she had inquired. Knowing the Dean of Medicine was involved meant it was something she couldn't trust a more junior doctor to deal with. Either she believed Elizabeth to be important or she had something she couldn't entirely fix. Or both. More attention was never a good thing.

"I'm sorry to be abrupt, but on a scale of one to ten, where would you place your pain?" Cuddy asked, keeping her voice a touch quiet as if to make up for launching straight into question.

"...I...about a...five, I suppose..."

"And when you woke?"

"...Eight," Elizabeth breathed. She wondered if it was a nine, or if the places her body didn't hurt balanced out the agony.

"We don't want you on a higher level of pain medication right now if you don't absolutely need to be. I'm afraid you're going to be uncomfortable, but in the long run the benefits are-"

"Fine," she snapped, knowing the nagging at the edge of her consciousness was something she was going to have to learn how to handle if she was going to hold any form of civil conversation with anyone. "My knee," Elizabeth said, "the left one hurts more than anything else. I don't want to move it."

Cuddy nodded and one of the other doctors continued scribbling on a chart. "...We couldn't prevent your body's immune response causing more damage when the initial infection-"

"Infection?"

"We think you initially picked up a strain of encephalitis. You couldn't fight it off and the inoculation you'd had may have actually made things worse. Secondary nerve damage may be the cause of the pain in your arms and legs. It should-"

Elizabeth's eyebrows twitched. "Should?" she drowsily repeated.

"Should," Cuddy continued, "heal with treatment and time. We'll try to fix the damage to your knee, but you need to recover enough to-"

"You don't...know what's causing it for sure?"

"...Not..as yet."

Eyes glazed over, Elizabeth froze. She wasn't sure how long she was absolutely still for, but her mind was racing. She could insist her job was all about ethics and words and a careful performance as much as she liked, but a lot of it did come down to appearance. Some war lords wouldn't even listen to a woman, let alone a woman in a wheelchair or walking with a stick. She had to walk. She had to stand, hell she had to look as imposing and competent as possible. Appearance really was everything in some situations. For some infection to cripple her body and take her job...

A combination of drugs and the news that she might never walk easily (if at all, was that what they were saying?) again swelled to overtake her thought processes completely. 'If', 'why?', 'but' and 'how?' all surfaced at once and fought for dominance. Weak and exhausted just from the short exchange, Elizabeth let her eyes fall closed and a deep sleep reclaim her once more

-

"You're obsessed."

"You're a giver," House replied, a condescending smile in place. He rummaged through the sheaf of papers on his lap. "I'm sorry, I thought we were stating the obvious."

"I mean with that CNS infection woman," Wilson said, dropping a pile of folders onto his desk. He was barely surprised to find House lurking in his office, it being more common that finding him in his own.

"That woman?"

"You said yourself – she's hot."

House scoffed. "Please. She's unconscious. I have my lows, but I haven't stooped that far yet. Besides, she still doesn't add up. That's far more interesting."

"Unconscious?" Wilson sat down. "Cuddy had her woken this morning."

"She what?" he gawped.

"Woken. This morning. Briefly."

Irritation clear, House tried to set it aside with a smart remark. "Still speaking Mandarin?" he snapped.

"I wouldn't know. English, I presume."

"Tell her she wasn't going to walk?"

Sighing, Wilson opened the first of the folders. "I wasn't there. Ask Cuddy."

"Can't."

"Why not?"

House rolled his eyes. "Because then she'll know and apparently I'm not supposed to go near her precious patient."

"Since when has that ever stopped you?"

"Is that encouragement? And whoever said anything about that stopping me? Just don't go telling tales."

Wilson threw him a mock salute and muttered something under his breath. "Just don't get caught."

"I haven't fixed her yet. I have no intention of getting caught."

"Maybe if you just worked together with Cuddy and the team assessing-"

"Work? With Cuddy? Set a precedent?" House gawped and feigned shock.

"Heaven forbid you should do what's best to try and save someone suffering the same pain as you," Wilson mumbled.

"If everyone would remember correctly - I made a choice. My rights were signed away and alternative treatment approved by, oh yes, the very same woman you believe to be right in every decision she makes. I have a missing thigh-muscle that says otherwise. I don't oppose her just for the sheer hell of it, I do it because sometimes she's actually wrong," he insisted.

"This isn't about you."

"And yet you say it is!" House crowed.

Wilson's eyes narrowed. "You can't get on with Cuddy because you don't like bowing to her authority. It has nothing to do with the fact that you think she signed away your leg. If you can help Weir, help her. If you can figure out what caused so much damage, then it's a bonus."

House stood. "You help her. You're the caring one. I'll figure out why she needs helping at all."

"Don't make promises to her that you can't keep."

"I never promise anything to anyone."

The door slammed behind him.

-

Elizabeth woke to the sound of a tapping that definitely wasn't her screaming nerves or a doctor trying to get her attention. Not intentionally anyway. She moaned as she automatically went to stretch and pain raced down her right leg.

"Hurts."

The word made her jump and slur a curse under her breath. Searching for the source of the statement – it hadn't been a question – she shifted and located a figure by the window, resting on a cane and minus a white coat.

"How bad?"

Frowning, Elizabeth demanded, "Who are you?"

"A curious party. How bad does it hurt?" House repeated.

An experimental twitch of her right shoulder later and she answered, "...About a five."

"Ignore the stupid system. Is it aggravating, distracting? Are you looking at me like that because I'm pissing you off or because you're in pain?"

"A bit of both, if I'm honest."

He smiled for a moment, amused. "Honest would be admitting it's not a five."

"I don't know what it is. I've never been in as much pain as I was this morning, but I can't tell you if it was a ten or absolute agony," Elizabeth tried to respond calmly, the tingling in her left arm already enough to agitate her.

"You were in agony. They put you out because you were screaming. You just don't remember."

"Then I still can't tell you. It hurts. It hurts a lot."

He studied her, eyes roaming over her in a manner that made her look away. "You're afraid how much it'll hurt if they lower the dose of your drip," he said, as if he knew her inside out.

The drugs and seemingly pointless banter made her head swim. "Who are you?" she questioned. "A doctor? My doctor? Did Doctor Cuddy send you?"

"She did not and I am not. Not yours, at any rate." House hobbled over to her bedside. His brow furrowed. "You're sweating..."

"...It's warm in here."

"Your fever's gone. Blankets aren't heavy." He checked her drip and looked back at her. "You're lying. It's not a five." He lorded it over her as if it were some kind of great victory.

Elizabeth exhaled slowly and curled her right hand into a fist around a section of blanket. "Does it matter? It'll just make the process longer if-"

"If we dope you up to the sky now? Some people would consider it a break. Personally I'm not a fan of suffering because you have to."

She stared at the ceiling for a moment. "A break," she repeated. "You mean this is permanent?"

His shoulders twitched. "Could be. Maybe not. Depends how honest we're all going to be."

Looking right at him, she asked, "Can you fix all this? Or should I expect this pain for the rest of my life?"

"You should expect some pain. The amount may be down to you."

"Can you fix my knee?"

House seemed to lean more heavily on the cane for a few seconds. "Can't fix what isn't there. You say it hurts, but if whatever did the damage already packed up and left... Most likely cause is a more localised infection that your body had a more extreme reaction to when we treated you. You may have damaged it when it was numb and couldn't comment on it."

Elizabeth nodded and looked away again. "Why are you here? You're not my doctor."

"You're not half-bad to look at. And you're one of the few people who can hold a half-decent conversation whilst on the level of pain meds you're on."

She looked him up and down. "What happened to you?"

He waved the cane and smiled triumphantly. "Amateur dramatics. I find it helps to mimic patients' injuries."

Anger made her muscles rigid and her nerves protest the move. "Get out," she said softly.

House made his way to the door. "You want to walk again: abandon your pride. No use being noble and refusing pain relief when there's nobody watching. Rooms of suits might tremble at the force of your reasoning, but your body won't."

When he was gone, Elizabeth blinked rapidly and tried to slow her breathing.

Bastard.


	3. Chapter 3

She was _smiling_. And _laughing._

Wilson had some strange, unnatural power over women. It was disturbing. But he was smiling too, laughing with her. What in the hell was going on? How on earth could she be remotely happy whilst in the amount of pain she had to be in? Damnit, what gave her the right to smile through her ordeal?

House stopped glancing between his best friend and the deviant woman. Instead, he started to pull faces through the glass, knowing there was only so long that Wilson could ignore him. Right on schedule, the oncologist disengaged from conversation with Weir and headed across the room to meet him, looking rather unimpressed.

"You're fraternizing with the enemy."

Wilson slid the door shut behind him. "What?"

"Cuddy likes her."

"Cuddy treats her. I, however, like her. It's refreshing to find someone capable of separating life from pain."

"Oh," House pretended to see the light. "I get it. You're studying her as a way of studying me. You're using her. Shouldn't you tell her? Break it to her gently and all."

A long suffering sigh preceded, "Why are you here?"

"Looking for you."

"Here?" Wilson raised his eyebrows.

A shrug and House replied, "Why not here?"

Wilson glanced back into the room, where Elizabeth seemed to have fallen asleep. He wondered if she was faking it. "You're interested in her." When he caught the expression on House's face, he shook his head and grimaced. "Not like that."

"Why should I be interested in her? Why should I give any more of a damn about her than any of the other patients who plague me? Conspiracy theories, Wilson. Suspicion...not a good colour on you."

"You lingered whilst she was unconscious. You're trying to figure her out. Cuddy's told you to stay away, which means more than anything."

"You'd rather I didn't work out why her body's defective?" House headed off. "And Cuddy tells me to stay away from a lot of people. Then if she can find me sitting on my ass she can haul me down to the Clinic."

"You're trying to figure _her_ out. You are interested. You're interested because she's you. She has the potential to be you. Except _she_ has a soul," Wilson stated.

House barely paused. "A soul doesn't get you as far as you think." He raised his voice. "Well, are you going to let my patient die or are you going to follow me like a good little doctor?"

* * *

Only three days of being helped every time that she absolutely had to move anywhere and Elizabeth was already more frustrated that she could ever immediately recall being. Having people run around after her had never been her idea of a good time, hell, even a reasonable time. She needed to be busy. She liked being busy. Now the drugs were knocking her out just when she 

didn't want to be and none of the hospital staff had ever got back to her on getting some decent reading material. Her mother had been contacted, but, since both mother and daughter disliked hospitals to the point of avoiding them completely, Elizabeth hoped she wouldn't visit. Not since her father. It had been several years and still...it never felt it.

She needed something to do. Her team had briefly contacted the hospital to let her know how the negotiations had panned out, but they'd held back important details and given the bare minimum of information. As they should have, she supposed, but it was irritating to be out of the loop when she had been an integral part of the talks. They were sparing her the stress. She lived on stress! Thrived on it! Now her body had turned on her and she was stuck in a hospital bed.

Well. They hadn't told her not to move. She had opted not to. Nobody had said she mustn't try and get back on her feet.

She concentrated on disconnecting her drip in the least dramatic fashion possible, wondering if she would be screaming to be hooked back up in the next few minutes. Throwing herself into 'mind over matter' territory, Elizabeth yanked back the bedcovers and steeled herself to move. One, swift, movement and a rush of pain later and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, legs over the side. Slowly breathing out, she glanced around the room as if seeing it for the first time. That hadn't been so bad. Not nearly as bad as she had been expecting. Confidence growing, Elizabeth eased herself to experimentally set her feet on the ground. Pushing off from the bed, she let her full weight rest on her legs...

..And fell to the floor in a flash of agony so shockingly fierce that she didn't even think to cry out.

As the initial pain faded, her surroundings flickered back in around her. The floor was cold; she was sprawled across it in a most undignified manner...and there was somebody staring down at her from the other side of the glass wall.

House tapped the base of the wall with his cane as he peered down at her. When she looked up, Elizabeth expected to find him smirking, or with some triumphant smile fixed in place. There was no smile. Unblinking, he watched her as she struggled to sit up. By the time she looked up at him again, he was gone. What kind of doctor left a patient on the floor?

Ambling deliberately slowly towards the nearest Nurses' Station, House leaned against the desk units and checked his watch.

"Can I help you?"

"Not me. And not for a couple of minutes. At least."

As used to his moods as anyone could ever get, the nurse before him frowned. "What have you done?"

"Why do you always assume it's me?" House pretended to be hurt.

"Because it's always you," she stated.

He kept his eyes on his watch. "Give it a while." He wondered if Elizabeth was howling or crying by now, through the pain or sheer indignity. "If you go down the hall, you're going to find a severely pissed off diplomat on the floor because she ripped out her drip and decided that the damage to her legs really shouldn't impede her walking."

Attracting one of her colleague's attention, the nurse headed off. "Did she fall or was she pushed?" she shouted back over her shoulder.

"Hey, I just left her there. Ask humpty dumpty herself. If she's not forthcoming, interrogate the king's horses. They've always looked suspicious, I tell you." House gazed down the corridor as 

three nurses approached the room with the occupant he refused to admit he was fascinated with. He was sure he heard a stubborn shout of 'no!' during the time in which the door was open. She was strong, that one. Knowing his curiosity to ascertain whether or not she was refusing to be helped back to her feet was too intense, House forced himself away from the Nurses' Station and to the nearest elevator.

Besides, wasn't it about time she came off that drip?

* * *

"I want her off the morphine."

She had learned to steel herself against the familiar crash of her office door flying open. "Who?" Cuddy asked, her attention still focused on the file laid out on her desk.

"Weir," House stated.

Now she did look up. "You didn't..." she began.

"Didn't what?"

"You have patients of your own to harass. Leave mine alone."

"You clearly haven't been paying enough attention. I want her off the drip," he repeated.

"And I want a skinny latte to taste as good as a regular one. Can't all get what we want." Cuddy closed the file and folded her hands in her lap. "I won't take Weir off the drip when I know the pain she'll be in, as do you."

"That's why I want the drip gone."

"Why are you so fixated on this woman? I'd say that I get that you empathise, but that would mean you had a heart. What is this? Payback? For me? You think I caused your pain, so you're determined to cause a similar case of mine the same sort of-"

"Keep her drugged up in that bed, she'll have no reason to think she has to make progress," he interrupted. "She'll think the pain will go and that's why we're giving her the drugs for now. We don't know if it will. Get her off the morphine and on her feet and she'll have to deal. You want me to list the other reasons? Depression, muscle atrophy-"

"And when she can't deal and we've broken her before we've even begun?" she demanded. "What then? You're a fine one to talk of getting on with things. You evade, you don't confront, you don't face _anything._"

"Come out from behind that desk with some more rousing speeches like that and we'll see exactly what I can 'confront'," House shot back. "For god's sake, you just defeated your own logic. I evade things, fine, and I'm me. So what harm is there in getting Weir to face her probable future?"

Thinking beyond the morphine, out of the blue, Cuddy asked, "You want her case?"

House seemed to rear back. "Why would I-"

"You want to tell me how to treat her; you take her case. If she's one of yours, perhaps you'll avoid her as much as you do the others. Wilson says-"

"Wilson knows nothing. Wilson would tell you I was fixated on the second floor bathrooms if I used them more than once a day."

A slow smile and Cuddy leaned forward. "Wilson says she's been trying to walk."

Trying to cover his mistake, House continued, "If I take her case, we do things my way."

"As long as you aren't having vicodin get-togethers and she isn't writhing in agony, then fine. But I'm watching you. And Wilson...well, Wilson's always watching you."

He smirked. "What about having agony get-togethers and writhing in vicodin?"

"Get out."

House turned to leave. "You sound just like her, you know."

"You disobeyed me!" Cuddy's eyes widened and she shouted after him.

"Oh, don't act surprised."

* * *

For the second time in so many days, Elizabeth woke to find a scruffy-looking doctor at the end of her bed. She blinked a few times and sat up a little, peering at him through narrowed eyes. "Doctor House," she greeted.

"I never told you my name," he mumbled, eyes on her chart.

"Doctor Wilson-"

House sighed. "Wilson always ruins my fun."

"What happened to 'amateur dramatics'?" Elizabeth nodded towards the cane resting against the foot of her bed.

"I'm a dedicated performer. I'm _that_ good," he responded. Abandoning the chart, he mimicked her expression as he studied her. "And so are you, it would seem."

"No offense, Doctor House, but seeing as you're not my doctor, I'd rather you-"

"I am your doctor. As of today." House managed to keep the smile from his face as he delighted in the fact that she seemed to have blanched a shade paler. "Which means I can get the tests I want done and get you off that drip."

Elizabeth watched him limp across to unlock the case the morphine pump was kept in and heard the bleeping as he lowered the dose. Expecting him to slowly lower the amount over time, she automatically snatched her hand back when he reached for her. "What are you-"

One hand round her wrist, House disconnected the drip line and released her. "In an hour or so, we'll start you on gabapentin." He kept quiet about any vicodin involved. If she didn't know she was likely to need it, she wouldn't wonder where it was. He knew gabapentin wasn't going to give her as much pain relief as she needed, but she didn't know what he did. If she thought that was all she would get then... Well, who knew what she could convince her body not to feel.

Lack of medical knowledge left her with nothing to do but stare as he sat in the chair beside her bed and overplayed relaxing. Elizabeth tried to make a reasonable calculation of when withdrawal would set in.

"It'll work on the nerve damage and stop you seizing," House breathed, gazing up at the ceiling.

"You think I'm going to have more seizures?"

"Anything's possible."

As quick as it was, Elizabeth followed the path of two pills from his pocket to his mouth. "Not amateur dramatics."

"You're a smart one," he muttered.

She was waiting for him to leave. Tugging the bedclothes higher in some defensive gesture, she exhaled slowly and decided not to form a just as sarcastic reply. "Pardon my ignorance, but don't you have other patients?"

"Yep."

"And don't they need-"

"Nope."

Elizabeth wanted him gone. If she was going to end up fighting the urge to scream and wanting to throw things around the room, she wanted to do it in as much privacy as a glass-walled room with flimsy blinds permitted. Admitting pain to an apparently somewhat insane doctor who already irritated her more and more by the moment wasn't something she relished the prospect of.

"I'm sure there are people in his hospital far more deserving of your attention than me," she said, calmly.

"You're probably right," House answered. "They're also more trouble and greatly boring."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're here because I entertain you?"

"I'm here because I know how to get you to walk again."

"You intend on damaging my pride so greatly that I walk just to prove you wrong? Perhaps reverse psychology?"

He sat up straighter. "Well damn, all my evil plans have been thwarted," he drawled.

"I've stared down much more important people with much more power than you." Her voice grew stronger. "I'm not frightened of _you_."

House soberly met her gaze for a good while, waiting for her to back down. When she didn't, he glanced away for a moment and shifted in his chair. In that moment, her mask slipped a little and his blue eyes narrowed, the only evidence of his concern. "...You should be," he murmured.

* * *

He left long before her withdrawal kicked in, right as the pain began to seep into her facial features and she was having trouble finishing sentences with the words in the correct order and without shoving them down his throat. The few hours spent with Elizabeth - avoiding being assigned more patients under the guise of 'work' – only confirmed what he knew all along. Gabapentin wasn't going to do it. She was probably shaking and having cold flushes by now.

House trailed a hand across the keys of the piano, stopping to strike out a tune he made up on the spot. He would have savaged Cuddy if she had put him though what he was forcing Weir to endure. Perhaps the hot-tempered dean of medicine had already interrupted his plans and put her back on the morphine. As he downed more vicodin, he half-hoped that she had. Part of him told him that he needed to break Weir before he put her back together. It would be more interesting if she fought back, however.

Would he have taken the case so readily; lingered to converse with the woman, if he thought she would be broken so easily?

How long would be pretend he could figure out what had shredded her knee? Any number of common theories he could draw on could be the answer. Were Cuddy and Wilson humouring him?

Maybe he wanted to prove his reaction to chronic pain wasn't unique to him. Was that it? Was he studying her to prove a point? He could have studied her from afar and never spoken a word to her. What in the hell was going on?

...Did she have the soul he wanted?

Ludicrous.

House struck out another melody, louder and more forcefully until the music filled his apartment and flooded his senses.

* * *

The next morning, after waiting an amount of time that he believed would project that he didn't give a damn, he dropped by to check on Elizabeth's 'progress'.

She was sweating and blinking rapidly. House suspected that the death-look she shot him as soon as she set eyes on him had sent various politicians running for their mothers. Elizabeth didn't speak, as if already expecting a smart remark on his part, but he could make out the fist her left hand had formed beneath the bedcovers. That at least meant that the drugs were having some effect on her damaged nerves. He debated throwing a muscle-relaxant into the mix and dismissed the idea almost immediately. He needed her as coherent as possible.

"Wilson come visit?" House questioned.

Elizabeth nodded.

"He offer to hook you back up?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"I refused."

The defiance in her tone and eyes drew an unexpected smile from him.


	4. Chapter 4

Two days later and Elizabeth had finally aggravated the nurses enough for them to let her have access to the laptop she'd arrived with. She didn't know who had got their hands on it first – though she had a good idea who – but her account had been locked out, denying her access to most of her work. Thank god the hospital had wireless internet. Some pages just wouldn't load, but she had access to her e-mail at least. Or so she thought. The page seemed to function correctly, but she couldn't log in, no matter what she tried.

"Did you do this?" she asked, on hearing the door to her room slide open and a not quite rhythmic footstep.

"Good morning to you too," House retorted.

"Did you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. You do know that the internet's more for the bored kids down in Oncology?"

"And doctors who think they know better than their patients?" Elizabeth looked up and automatically tried to draw her knees towards her when a bundle of clothes landed on her feet. She hissed and muttered a curse.

"Get dressed," House ordered.

"...Why?"

"Because whilst I'd be perfectly content to let you wander around in that revealing gown, I don't want your being arrested for public indecency to ruin my plans."

"Which involve?" she questioned.

"Lunch," he replied. "So hurry up or it'll be an early afternoon snack. Besides, I've got a patient who's going to have quite a serious heart attack around two o'clock and I promised Wilson I'd hold his hand whilst he watched."

Elizabeth folded her arms across her chest. "Doctor House, I haven't been able to successfully move more than two paces on my own so far. What makes you believe I'm capable of getting to the hospital canteen?"

House hid a devious smile. Hospital canteen. "That's what wheelchairs were invented for. Get dressed. If you can't manage yourself, get a nurse to help you."

Having never been faced with the idea of not being able to dress herself since she was younger than five years old, embarrassed at the prospect, Elizabeth grabbed for the array of clothes at her feet. She frowned. "These aren't mine."

"You arrived with only suits. Which means you most likely sleep naked."

She blushed. "I-"

"Makes for lighter packing, I suppose. I stole from Laundry, so if anyone asks later, your name is Helena Bennett."

"...Right..."

He made for the door again. "Get a move on. I don't want to find Wilson in a sobbing heap on the floor by the time we get back."

-

Elizabeth stared from the motorcycle, the Orderly, to House and repeated the sequence again.

House checked his watch. "This could take a while." He watched her stare some more, then waved a hand in front of her face. "Yes, one inanimate object; two people, well done. Gold star."

"You're kidding, right?" she breathed.

"Nope."

"I can't walk! I'm so drugged up I can't see straight half the time." And so are you, she thought.

"Addict," he taunted.

"You're crazy."

"I want lunch," House stated. "You're coming with me, like it or not."

"I do believe I have a choice in the matter," Elizabeth insisted.

"Gonna run?"

She glared up at him, seething silently. She only just caught the helmet he flung at her, clenching her teeth when it hit her thighs and sent shooting pains down her legs in a ripple effect. Elizabeth watched, somewhat aghast, as her doctor pressed several notes into the hand of the Orderly. A couple of minutes of what felt like moving through fire later and she found herself semi-reluctantly on the back of the bike.

Freedom was freedom, she supposed, for no matter how brief a time. Even if it was with a somewhat insane consultant who was in little better shape than she. Oh god, what was she doing? She knew better than this. She needed to stay in the hospital and hope her body repaired itself, not let herself be carted about by a madman. Was the medication clouding her judgement? Was the pain-

House yanked her arms around his waist, jarring her back and making her breathe an oath. He sped off before she decided to scream or something just as stupid.

-

She was leaning far too heavily against him when the short journey came to an end. Frozen for a moment, wondering if she was unconscious, House was almost afraid to move until he realized that the grip around his waist was still just as strong.

"Hurts," he stated, in the same fashion he had during their first meeting.

"...Yes," Elizabeth admitted. She pulled off the helmet.

"Got something that can stop all that." After a second of rummaging in his pocket, House produced an ever-present bottle of vicodin. "Here," he said, offering it back to her. Steadying the motorcycle, he stepped onto the pavement, reclaiming his cane quicker than he would have liked to have been forced to.

Elizabeth was blinking down at the bottle in her hand.

"It's fine. Painkillers. The good stuff."

"What you're taking?"

"Yep."

House locked the motorcycle stand into place and headed off.

"Where are you going?" she called after him.

"Lunch."

"You said-"

"I said I wanted lunch. Didn't say anything about you having lunch." He leaned in to open the door of a restaurant a couple of buildings away from where he had stopped.

Son of a-! Elizabeth wasn't sure whether she felt more stupid or furious. Even then the sleepy haze of the gabapentin wearing off dulled any immediate reaction she might have had. But now she was in the middle of god knows where, on the back of a motorcycle, pain rising and technically at the mercy of some ill-adjusted bastard doctor.

Sitting on the bike was throwing her back and doing her legs no favours. She knew she'd tumble right to the floor if she tried to get to the sidewalk, however. She couldn't balance properly on two legs yet, let alone one. Make a scene by falling or make herself feel better by using every curse word she knew to berate 'Doctor' House?

Elizabeth studied the bottle of vicodin.

House, meanwhile, stood just inside the restaurant, watching her.

"Excuse me, sir, are you going to order?"

"Just browsing."

"Erm...sir, this is somewhere to eat, you don't really...browse..."

He yawned and turned to face the irritating waitress. "Are you denying me my basic human rights? Or is it the cane you take offense to?"

Appalled at the idea of being politically incorrect, the waitress held up her hands in a defensive gesture. "No, sir, less mobile-"

"Less mobile?" he repeated.

"I-"

"No, carry on, I'm offended already. Get me the manager," House said, hoping fetching the manager would get him a few more minutes. He turned his back on the waitress and concentrated on Elizabeth, who was still staring at the vicodin.

She estimated that he'd taken two thirds of the what she would assumed to be a 'safe' daily dose just in the hours he'd spent watching her a few days back. Was House that desperate for pain relief, a lousy mathematician or actually some kind of addict? And, if he was an addict, did the pills lend themselves to abuse or was it his personality? Were the two even exclusive? Was he an ass because of the pills or was it just...him?

What if she was going to be stuck with the pain for the rest of her life? Would she end up like that?

Her left arm was trembling and she was already starting to think of her legs as separate entities to herself that she had to coerce into functioning.

House exclaimed aloud as he saw Elizabeth throw the bottle of vicodin behind her. Cursing her vehemently at the exact moment the restaurant manager appeared, he made a point of clamping his mouth shut and leaving before he could be accused of being in the wrong and he was one down to a waitress of all people.

"Idiot!" he yelled, as he set foot back on the sidewalk.

"Bastard," Elizabeth half-heartedly hissed, pain already getting the better of her.

"You think Wilson's gonna believe you threw away my meds?"

"I hope he doesn't."

House searched behind the bike for the bottle. No bottle. No bottle! "Moron! Don't they teach you politician types to meet people half-way?"

A harsh laugh escaped her. "As a last resort."

Maybe it had rolled under a car. Which could belong to anyone. Chances of getting it moved...pretty much nil. Scrabbling around under the car...painful and humiliating. But necessary. Perhaps. "How about next time you don't take the pills and yet you don't throw them away!"

"You had me leave the hospital for no damn good reason! Have you got any idea how much just sitting here hurts?"

House rocked back on his heels and studied her. "I'd say so."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she cried, head ducked and not quite sure whether she was talking to her abductor or her legs.

"You didn't take them. You could've knocked back half that bottle and you didn't."

"I'm not suicidal."

"No," he produced a bottle of gabapentin and another stash of vicodin from his jacket. "It would seem not." He took one of each and held them out to her. "Have at it. Knock yourself out."

Elizabeth eyed the bottles warily and reluctantly swallowed the pills after House handed both bottles and medication over for her to study.

"One isn't going to kill you," he commented, reclaiming the bottles. "Or grant you my wit and charm."

"I expect you started with one," she said.

"Two, three, four, who's counting?"

"What happened to you?" Elizabeth asked, trying her question again.

"This isn't me time. Now budge up, I can sense Wilson caring from here. If you're a really good girl, I might even let you watch the heart attack."

"You're a poor excuse for a human being," she mumbled.

"And don't I know it."

-

"You kidnapped a patient!"

"I kidnapped my patient. Is it kidnap if they go willingly?"

"You put a woman who can't walk on the back of a motorcycle!" Cuddy exclaimed.

House pretended to cast his mind back. "...Technically, I didn't put her anywhere. Ask the Orderlies."

"And then you left her in the middle of the street with a bottle of vicodin!"

His shoulders twitched. "I was hungry."

"If you absolutely had to haul her off somewhere, did you not think a car might have been more appropriate?" Cuddy remained behind her desk, afraid that she might cause actual physical harm if she didn't.

"Less fun," he replied. "Besides, car would've been too comfortable." He hesitated. "Did you send the flying monkeys or was someone, say...Wilson, trailing me?"

She rolled her eyes. "You'd have noticed Wilson."

"Fair point. He does cause such a scene wherever he goes. Frankly, it's embarrassing."

"House!"

"What!?" he roared back, mimicking her tone and volume. "She's still alive, isn't she? She's not begging drugs or seizing."

"You left a crippled woman with all she needed to overdose," Cuddy stressed.

"You repeatedly offer up to me all I need to overdose. I don't see you desperately concerned about that. Don't think I'm up to it?" House goaded.

"You could have killed her. If she had gone into a seizure or fallen-"

"I could kill half my patients every other week. Most of them are still alive, mores the pity. Oh..." Realization dawned. "You think somebody will notice if I off this one by accident? Maybe some big government organisation will shut us down? Take your job?"

Cuddy sighed. "She's important. She's hurting. And if you think this is bad, you wait until I get onto what you did to Wilson's patient-"

"Was my patient at the time," House protested.

"-Now Wilson's patient, yesterday."

"He was asking for it."

"Not everyone is 'asking' for your particular brand of therapy!" she snapped.

"If we're calling it 'therapy' now, can I bill them twice?" he quipped. "Look, she's in one piece and she didn't take the pills. What more do you want?"

Cuddy collapsed into her chair, near her wits' end. "And you couldn't have pulled your little stunt in the hospital?" she uttered.

"No. Because then she would have known someone other than me was watching her. Outside, off the property, she had every opportunity to take all the pills she wanted and she didn't."

"This is just the beginning for her," she stressed. "It could, and probably will, get worse before it fades. The pain, I mean. If you were going to test her like that, you should've waited a few weeks."

"So you're condoning it now," House muttered. Moving swiftly on, he launched into, "You're going to discharge her soon. Medically speaking, there's nothing we can do for her that can't be done at any other hospital. Which is just as well, because she's getting pissed. If she starts wailing, another hospital is going to give her drugs. If she can learn she doesn't need them-" House narrowed his eyes, taking in the soft expression Cuddy was sporting. "What?"

"If she doesn't need them, why do you?"

"Her damage isn't permanent. Her nerves will eventually regenerate, whereas I'm damn sure I won't be growing a new muscle any time soon."

"You hope her nerves will regenerate."

House shrugged. "I could argue that half the pain is in her head."

"I could say the same of you," she quickly and evenly.

His lips quirked. "You could. You'd be lying. Oh, and I give it twenty-four hours before my motorcycle mysteriously 'vanishes', like they always do. Someone must have quite the collection by now."

Sensing an old, old pattern about to reassert itself, Cuddy backed down, against her better judgement. There was little point in fighting a battle she couldn't win. Yet. As she watched House leave, she wondered if watching him suffer was her punishment and wished she didn't know all he had been before better than anyone else.

-

"Elizabeth."

Someone was nudging her, gently. Elizabeth opened her eyes, about to complain that she wanted to sleep, though she didn't when she recognized the figure beside her bed. "Mom..." she whispered, throat dry.

"How are you?" her mother asked, a smile in her eyes betraying just how stupid and unnecessary she believed the question to be.

"I've...been better." Elizabeth wearily replied, reaching for her mother's hand.

"I can imagine."

"...You didn't have to-"

"Whatever aversions I may be guilty of, I had no intention of not visiting my only daughter."

The elder woman tried to make-eye contact with her increasingly drowsy child. "...And you may well need me to-"

"No." Suddenly alert, Elizabeth's eyes flashed open again. "No, Mom, I... I'm not a little girl. I need to do this myself. Whatever happens, happens... If I fail, then I want only myself to blame."

"Elizabeth-"

"Mother. No."

"One of the nurses who spoke with me to me discussed discharging you. A little soon, isn't it?"

"They cured the infection. Dealing with residual damage doesn't mean I should take up a hospital bed. It's costing them space and it's costing me money."

"So you'll go back to DC," her mother assumed.

Elizabeth seemed uncomfortable. "...Not yet. This hospital knows how to treat me and how to get me walking again, soon." Not entirely sure whether she was lying or not – hospital or House? – and slightly disturbed by the fact that she wasn't as eager to leave his presence as she'd hoped, she supposed she was trying to explain her choice more to herself than her mother. "I can get a place here for a while. Furnished. I can't travel far at the moment anyway and it's better than starting all over again with another hospital."

"If you can't function, how do you expect me to leave you here?"

"I can function. I will." The last couple of words slurred together and her eyes fell shut again.

"Elizabeth?"

"Mmm."

Her mother shook her head slightly and reached into her handbag. She glanced between her motionless daughter and the silver pocket watch she now held in her right hand. "...Your father..." she murmured, "he meant for you to have this. I...kept it, because I thought it would do you more harm than good." Unexpected tears made her vision blur and she looked up at the ceiling. "But he was strong, Lizzie," she used the nickname she hadn't been 'permitted' to use since Elizabeth's childhood, "he fought even when he didn't know who on earth we were and... I think you're going to need that strength now." She pressed the watch into the slack grip of cold hands.

Elizabeth's fingers twitched and slowly curled around the watch. A ghost of a smile took her. "...Daddy."


End file.
